Editing World War II Home Front (section)

== African American Opportunity ==

The war created new opportunities for African Americans while also revealing the limits of change. The [[Great Migration to Philadelphia|Great Migration]] had brought thousands of Black workers to Philadelphia, but discrimination had confined them largely to service jobs and excluded them from skilled industrial work. War labor shortages and pressure from civil rights organizations—including A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington Movement, which threatened a protest that prompted President Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802 banning discrimination in defense industries—opened new doors. African Americans gained access to jobs at the Navy Yard, in factories, and in skilled trades previously closed to them.<ref name="weigley"/>

Progress was real but limited and contested. The [[Philadelphia Transit Strike of 1944]] showed that white workers would resist sharing jobs with African Americans even during wartime. Neighborhoods remained segregated, and housing for Black defense workers was scarce. Black workers often faced hostility from white colleagues and were denied promotion to supervisory positions. Yet the war did expand opportunity: African Americans moved into industrial jobs in numbers previously impossible, earned higher wages, and gained experience that some would carry into postwar careers. The war advanced civil rights while also revealing how far the country remained from genuine equality.<ref name="lichtenstein"/>